Just Breathe
by The Queen of Alchemy
Summary: During the period of false peace, she was forced to make a decision that's even harder than choosing to fight. To keep a child who would tear her nation apart, or give it up, and tear herself apart? She was now at her weakest. Oneshot. AsuCaga.


**~JUST BREATHE~**

***Inspiration and a passage from Breathe by Anna Nalick. Note: Only the verses typed here are the ones that should be taken in context with the story. This oneshot takes place during the gap between the two wars, while Athrun and Cagalli are living together in Orb.***

**CAGALLI**

_We walk through the doors, so accusing - their eyes.  
Like they have any right at all to criticize.  
Hypocrites. You're all here for the very same reason..._

*

_'Cause you can't jump the track, we're like cars on a cable,  
And life's like an hourglass, glued to the table.  
No one can find the rewind button, girl.  
So cradle your head in your hands._

I guess it's true that I'm a hypocrite. Everything I stand for, all my morals and all that, well, that just got thrown right out the window.

I spent six months fighting in a desert to save lives. Protecting the defenceless. I've _never_ stood for taking the lives of innocents. Ever. But now, I'm about to kill an innocent child. A child, who, if I wasn't about to make this decision, would grow up, learn to walk and talk, go to kindergarten, and first grade, all the way up to high school graduation. Maybe even university. Might get married. Have kids.

A child, who, if I wasn't about to make this decision, would have called me 'Mom'.

And called Athrun Zala 'Dad'.

Well, to everyone here, he's Alex Dino.

He's sitting next to me. His palm rests on the small of my back, and even through my loose T-shirt, I feel the heat of his hand; a reminder that he's there.

I close my eyes, even though the fluorescent lightning has burned images onto my retinas, images that both scare and confuse me, childish as it may seem. I tell myself silently that it's only my imagination; and I should stop painting these godawful visions.

I remember two days ago, resisting the urge to look at the pregnancy test as I sat in a toilet stall, waiting for five minutes to pass. I remember the clicking high heels of other women who came and went as I was waiting, a series of taps echoing off the tiled walls. I remembered the cold sweat that gathered on my forehead as I glanced at the timer on my phone, and more than anything else; I remembered the moment my heart had faltered for a second; when the pink 'X' told me what I'd known was true all along. How I'd hoped I was wrong...

Any advice from me? There's a _reason_ teenagers are told _not_ to have sex. Even if they're aware of the reasons, it's hard to make anyone understand the true magnitude of all the possible mistakes. I certainly hadn't understood. Then.

I wish I could say I was one of those brave women you read about, who allow themselves one throat-swallowing moment before flat out deciding that they want to keep their baby, and that abortion is never going to be an option to them.

But I'm _not_ a woman. Maybe I thought I was, but that isn't the case. I'm a seventeen year old girl, and I'm scared out of my mind. You can fight a war, you can face death and walk free, but it's always a simple choice. Fight or run. It's either one way or another. It's not like this. Not one bit. There are a million different directions, and you don't know where to look first.

Where had I looked first? My mind had swiveled to face the abortion road for a split second, before my conscience, mortified, yanked me away. But the reality of the matter had dragged me down that road, conscience be damned. Fifteen minutes of deep breaths. I hadn't feared for anyone this much before now. I didn't think was it possible to feel fear, of all things, for something that should have been just a bundle of cells to me. Fear. I knew I would not be allowed to keep this baby.

I tell you this; I never bothered to look this far into the moral issue of abortion before now. It's different when you have no other option. It's different when what you want is different from what is expected of you. To the Orb government, I was not permitted to have a life outside of politics. Even worse, they would not allow me, as a teenager, to 'deface' their name with a child I would be carrying out of wedlock.

Having this child would tear my country apart.

And I would make a horrible mother.

Athrun would disagree - but who am I to believe a lie?

Why would I make a horrible mother, you ask?

Answer: Mothers are supposed to put their children first, before anyone else. To choose a minuscule nation's _pride_, of all things, over a human _life_? That shouldn't have been a choice at all. But I didn't have that luxury.

Many times, people say they'd step in front of a bullet for you. I was both blessed and cursed. I had someone I would do that for, someone who would do that for me. But because of this, we were destined to put each other in danger. No matter how safe his embrace felt, I couldn't lie to myself for long. Everything would fall apart some day. And that 'someday' could easily have been today.

But today _wasn't_ going to be that day, I had decided. Nothing would tear us apart today. Not today or tomorrow or the next day.

Telling him was difficult. It wasn't that we hadn't been careful. I had a doctor's prescription for birth control. I should have paid more attention to the doctor when he told me it had a 98% success rate. There was always that two percent, and that two percent had obviously been too great an obstacle for cheating destiny.

I half expected him to turn away. He hadn't. He'd asked me what I wanted; as if his opinion didn't matter. I told him what needed to be done.

I cried a river with his arms around me, and it was only a few minutes before a tear touched my cheek. And it wasn't mine.

Baby, are you a girl or a boy? Do you look like Athrun or me, or maybe a mixture? Would you have hopes and dreams regardless of whether you'd be born?

I glance around the sterile environment of the clinic. My hair is tied back, and I'm wearing civilian clothes and sunglasses. I don't want anyone to recognize me. I had walked into this waiting room twenty minutes ago, Athrun's hand on my waist, almost as if he thought I might collapse. I didn't think it was an irrational prediction.

It wasn't as though people would assume I was here for a booster shot. This was an abortion clinic. How could they look at me with such disapproval? They were here for roughly the same reasons as I. They couldn't possibly know who I was; for one, I was hardly striking enough to be recognized for who I was, much less with sunglasses. For another, I hadn't even used my real name signing the register. Abortion on demand was legal in Orb, so I wasn't required to produce ID. Perhaps it was my obvious youth that somehow set me apart from them. Did they really think they were any different? Did they think they possessed some divine right that I did not?

"Annette Parker?" the petite receptionist called out. I stared at the wall blankly, before remembering that for the afternoon, this was my name. We stood. The blonde woman looked at us sympathetically, before telling us that I was assigned to room 145.

The woman waiting for us had looked just as pitying. She suggested Athrun leave the room, but I gripped his hand tighter.

I climbed onto the examination chair. I ignored all the suction cups and icy goo that the woman placed on my still flat stomach. I learned that day that sometimes, you can leave the room without ever getting up. The last thing I saw, before I was knocked out with enough tranquillizer to subdue a rabid horse, was a grainy image on the monitor, of a small figure. The limbs were already visible. Perfect, and yet...

It wasn't meant to be.

I tried to open my mouth to tell the woman to stop; Orb politics be fucking damned. But before I could so much as cry out, I reeled back into the abyss my subconscious had become.

_I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry..._


End file.
